The Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre worked with ‘Rooted’, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), who created a community garden within the grounds of the centre.
Summary
The Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre worked with ‘Rooted’, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), who created a community garden within the grounds of the Centre. The aim was to create a range of activities using archive collections and to encourage the local community to grow vegetables, eat healthily and get involved with gardening for a positive impact on physical and mental wellbeing. One of the standout successes was the ‘starter garden’ packets of heritage seeds which were attached to A5 leaflets with growing guidelines and linked to the archive through photographs and historical information.
The challenge
To make the archives relevant to a broad range of people and to create meaningful connections with health and wellbeing to benefit residents.
The solution
Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre saw the potential to explore their archives and for the creation of a community garden on their grounds. They created a range of activities using archive collections, relating to gardens and gardening. Some activities dovetailed with the launch of the 1921 census and featured 1920s gardens and planting schemes. Using the 1920s as a focal point provided a pathway for participants to explore associated archives of the period, such as, newspapers, photographs, letters, maps and estate records. This element of the project aimed to provide a direct point of inspiration for those involved, to engage them with gardening and the archive.
Talks and workshops were popular on historic gardening with helpful leaflets and on-line information on growing heritage vegetables. One of the standout successes was the ‘starter garden’ packets of heritage seeds which were provided attached to A5 leaflets with growing guidelines and links to the archive through photographs and historical information. This concept could be used in future to spotlight specific documents or collections.
Involvement with the community garden and with the archive sources facilitated engagement by individuals on their own or as part of a group. The Centre secured £10,000 Testbed funding from The National Archives for this project.
The impact
These activities were not targeted at specific groups or communities, the aim was to stimulate a wider, more informal approach to physical and well-being activity for all ages and abilities. Involvement with the community garden and with the archive sources facilitated engagement by individuals on their own or as part of a group. However, one group the project enabled engagement with was home educating families, and this was an unexpected but very positive outcome of the project and has allowed a link to this group for the future.
“It helped link up history we have learned about as a part of our home education, and linking it to places we live near or pass in our day to day life”
How is the new approach being sustained?
Wiltshire Council have invested in the site, providing poly tunnels, compost bins and equipment. The community garden runs itself and every other Saturday the gardening group comes along. However, it’s an open site and everyone is encouraged to come in and pick the produce!
Lessons learned
The concept of connecting archives with practical personal projects, such as growing a packet of seeds, could be used in future to enable greater engagement with the archives.